The Trek to Toolik

Getting to Toolik Field Station is not easy. After a nice flight in which I had an entire row of seats to myself, a New Zealander (or "kiwi" as they like to be called) named Body picked me up in one of the station's heavy-duty deisel pickup trucks. We made our way south on the Dalton Highway for over three hours, running across some very interesting things on the way.

Definitely a roughneck kind of town

We hadn't been on the road for 30 minutes when I spotted this guy. Body says I'm lucky because some people come up here for five years and never see one.

A golden eagle.

Musk Oxen. Apparently they had beef to settle.

Caribou, aka reindeer. There were herds of these all over the tundra.

Water crossing!

Ice road truckers!

A long way from everywhere. (Slope Mt. Camp doesn't actually count as someplace)

The oil pipeline that runs along the road.

This was by far the most interesting part of the traverse to Toolik Field Station. I now truly feel the wilderness around me. Miles upon miles of nothing but earth, wild animals, and sky. No fences, no trash, no people. Just a bunch of crazy scientists and the land of the midnight sun.